The Pokémon Chaos Game
by theshypen
Summary: Kenny has done it. He now owns the rare Pokémon Chaos Gameboy game. But testing the game turns fateful, as he suddenly finds himself INSIDE the game, as the protagonist in a Pokémon world nobody has ever seen before: the twisted version of Chaos...HALTED
1. Inserting the game pak

_**Author's notes: **This is not a regular get-starter-collect-badges-story. This is about a 'real' boy who happen to jump into the world of the pokémon **games**... Well it sounded interesting in my mind, at least... If you like the idea, review, and I'll continue the story!_

_**Disclaimer: **I don't own the Pokémon games or the Gameboy trademark. Nintendo probably does._

* * *

_**In The Pokémon Chaos Game!**_

§

**1.**

**Inserting The Game Pak**

"Kenny! I'm going out for a while. Don't turn the house upside down when I'm gone. And you'd better feed Ellington as well."

Mrs Parker pulled on her coat and grabbed her purse from a bench in the hallway. She hesitated for a moment when nobody answered her calling.

"Kenny! Did you even hear me?"

"Yeah, mom," came her son's reply from upstairs.

Mrs Parker shook her head disapprovingly. For surely, Kenny's reply was an automatic one. But it was better than nothing, in these days, when the only thing on his mind was those stupid games.

"See you in a couple of hours, honey!" she called again, and finally left the house.

"Yay, your mom's gone!" Pete cheered and jumped onto Kenny's bed. "We're alone, at last!"

"That's right," Kenny said, as he got up to the window in his room, and watched his mother drive away. "Now it's time!"

Pete jumped off the bed and looked eagerly at him, eyes glimmering. "Do you have it?"

"I have it!" Kenny shouted happily, and opened one of the lower drawers beside his desk.

He pulled forth a tiny piece of plastic and held it like a holy Grail in front of his friend.

"Behold the _Pokémon Chaos Game_!" Kenny said pompously. "Said to feature all the regions and all the pokémon! It's harder to get your hands on than a shiny Empoleon in the Red Version! But _we've__got it_!"

"But Kenny, there are no Empoleons at all in the Red Version... are there?"

"No, stupid, it was a mere metaphor. Why don't we test this already?"

They eagerly inserted the tiny game pak into Kenny's well-used Gameboy Advance, and turned it on.

"Whoa, it's incredible!" Pete exclaimed, peeking over Kenny's shoulder.

"Pete, this is just the Nintendo logo," Kenny said annoyingly.

"Oh..."

"Now it begins!"

The two boys sat on the unmade bed, staring their eyes out on the little piece of machinery in Kenny's hands. The screen went black. And then an image appeared. The boys stared at it for a few seconds longer, then Pete raised an eyebrow and poked his finger at the small screen. At the same time, there was a small movement in the picture.

The boys looked at each other in disbelief and confusion. When they turned their heads back to the Gameboy, they just caught sight of another movement before the picture went still again. Kenny raised both his eyebrows, and Pete gasped loudly.

The smallest of sounds came from the Gameboy speakers. Pete stuttered, trying to say something about this.

"Hey, Kenny... that's..."

The Gameboy speakers again let out a sound.

"'Hey, Kenny... that's...'"

Pete couldn't help but letting out a high-pitched scream. Kenny dreaded what he knew would follow, even before his friend had stopped screaming.

The sound now erupting from the little machine wasn't natural. It could be called a scream, but it was much worse. The Gameboy speakers turned Pete's scream into a nightmarish, robotic shriek of horror. It made Pete scream even louder, and Kenny winced, not knowing what was going on, not able to take this in, not able to... understand, to_actually watch himself on that tiny screen_...

And then it all went black, and all the screams slowly faded away.

§

When Kenny opened his eyes, he didn't immediately remember what had made him pass out. Also, he felt strangely dizzy, but not in a bad way. He felt as if... as if he had just awoken.

"Kenny! What are you doing? Why aren't you up yet?" a furious voice called somewhere from.

Kenny sat up straight, and stretched his arms out. He then looked around for a pair of trousers to put on. There were none. Instead, he realized he was already fully dressed, in bed.

He jumped out of bed fast as if struck by lightning. What was all of this? This was not his room. Where was he? Where was Pete?

Pete! That name made him remember something... a scream... a cry of horror. He stumbled backwards into the television on the floor, and tripped over it. As he fell down onto his bottom, the door opened up, and a woman appeared.

"KENNY!" she shouted at him. "You make yourself ready in five minutes from now, or else I'll call professor Oak and tell him to not let you see his pokémon. EVER!"

Kenny didn't move. He lay flat on his back on the floor, and stared at the furious woman. Professor Oak? Pokémon? Was this...

The woman left the room, shaking her head disapprovingly. She suddenly remembered Kenny of his mother. Very much.

He got up and looked around. There was a computer in a corner of the room. There was a bed, a bookcase and there was a television, with a gaming device connected to it. It was an old sort of device, he had never tried it out, but he had heard of those. A SNES.

His jaw nearly dropped to the floor. This couldn't be... could it? He was standing in a very familiar room, in a very familiar world. But it wasn't his world. It was the world of the pokémon game.

"PEEEEETE!"

The only response he got to his cry was a sound from below, as if the protagonist's mother had just hit the ceiling several times with a broomstick. Kenny leaned his head in his hands. No wonder the Pokémon Chaos Game had been hard to acquire. The players clearly didn't seem to stick around in the real world long enough to pass it on!


	2. Entering the laboratoty

**2**

**Entering the laboratory**

Kenny stumbled outside, and thought his head would never stop spinning around. The air was normal, didn't smell funny or taste funny or look funny. But that was about the only thing that was normal.

The rest of the world around him was like something from a Gameboy game... _the_Gameboy game of course. He still couldn't believe it.

Behind him was a rather small house. Inside it, he had only found two single rooms. One on the top floor, where he obviously lived, and one on the ground floor, where the annoyed mother roamed, trying to get him out of the house as soon as possible. The rest of this village was spooky familiar as well. Oh, how many times Kenny had turned on his Gameboy and started playing right in front of that television, right in this house, right here... in Pallet town.

As if that wasn't enough, there was a large sign at his right with the grand words 'Kenny's house'. Curiosity grabbed him, and he looked more closely on his surroundings.

Even the colors of the world was the same as in the later games. He silently thanked the awful makers of this Pokémon Chaos Game for at least using the new versions as the base for it, and not the old, non-colored versions. That would really not be pleasant to run around in.

As he expected, there was only two more houses in the 'town'. Exactly as in the other games. One of them was similar to 'his' house. He walked over to it. There was a sign outside it too. When he read it, he nearly flinched.

'Pete's house', it read.

Kenny immediately darted inside. There was only one room to be found. And only one person, a girl.

"Kenny? What are you doing here?" she said, looking surprised.

"I... I was looking for Pete," he answered, slightly confused, trying to spot some stairs to a room like his own. Then he remembered that in these old games, there was no upstairs room in the rival's house.

Rival... was Pete his rival? _Pete_?

"Get out of here! You are supposed to got to professor Oak's lab, aren't you? And then you'll go off with the rest of them. Now, get out already!"

Offended, Kenny left the house, his mind not an ounce more clear after that visit. Why did everyone seem to want to get rid of him? He couldn't remember the protagonist ever being treated this way in the other games... And where was Pete? He looked up and spotted the third, and largest building in the town. The lab. Of course, that was always the first place to go in the Pokémon games. He started walking towards it.

But suddenly, he heard a noise from behind. He quickly turned around, and saw a movement in the tall grass near the forest. He slowly crept closer, eyes staring at the now and then stirring piece of grass. And then...

"Stop! Don't go out there!"

A firm hand grabbed his shoulder, and dragged him away before he could utter a single word. He tried saying something, but he constantly got interrupted.

"That was close! Boy, you can't go out in the grass on your own like that! There are _wild Pokémon_ out there! Haven't you heard the news lately? What am I saying, of course you have, I know your mother won't let you wander the village unknowingly..."

Kenny was now literally being dragged around, and couldn't turn his head around to get a look on his 'kidnapper'. But when they closed in on the great lab, and eventually stepped inside it, the firm hand let go of his shoulder, and Kenny could look up straight into the very face of no other than...

"Professor Oak!" To a true pokémon fan, this was like meeting with God. It was only shock that prevented Kenny from falling to his knees and start worshiping the old man.

"Yes, Kenny, come along here. You are late, you know?"

They walked further into the only room inside the lab, Kenny faintly recognized every bit of it, as he had walked here many times before, only from a... slightly different perspective.

When they finally reached the table at the end of the room, there was another boy standing beside it.

"Pete!" Kenny yelled happily.

But the boy just turned to scowl at him. "What? You look like you're happy to see me. What in Kanto has happened to you now?"

"Pete?" Kenny walked up to him, so close that the other boy actually backed a few steps. "Don't you remember? The Chaos Game? In my room?"

"What are you going on about? Gramps, will you take this lunatic away from me and give me a pokémon already?"

Kenny backed away, disappointed, as professor Oak turned to face the large table. This _was_ Pete, he looked exactly like him. But he didn't _act_ like Pete did. And he clearly didn't recognize him as he should. Kenny turned to the table as well. And he spotted the three balls on top of it.

He almost flinched again, but this time with sheer excitement. This was the three starter balls? He, _he_, was going to get a pokémon? Kenny couldn't stop a greedy smile from forming on his lips. Maybe this wasn't such a bad game after all. He easily dropped any worries about getting home and back to reality.

"Well, let's get this over with," professor Oak said, turning to the boys. "Kenny, do you see those balls? Each contain a pokémon. I am going to give you a pokémon of your own. You really need it, if you are going to get out of town to join the rest of the region."

Kenny didn't ponder the professor's strange words, he just wished for him to speak faster, so that the pokémon could be his already.

"And before you start, Pete, you will get a pokémon as well, but I thought it would be nice to let Kenny choose first?"

Pete glared sourly at Kenny, as the second boy moved forward and let his hand wander above the red and white pokéballs.

"I have chosen some really special pokémon for you today," the professor said. "You need them to survive, believe me. Which one will you pick? It's a game of luck, yes, but you won't turn out unhappy in any way."

Kenny didn't bother hesitating, and didn't really listen to Oak. Any pokémon at all would be the coolest thing that had happen since he got the Pokémon Chaos Game Pak in his hand. No, this was even way cooler.

He just placed his hand on the pokéball in the middle. This was probably as good as anything.

"Come on already!" Pete sighed. "Are you ready? I'll take this one then!"

And he placed his own hand on the ball to the left. Before anyone of them could speak further, the professor quickly pulled his hand out and grabbed the last remaining pokéball. He let out an immensely huge breath, and took away that ball from sight.

"I suddenly noticed I had made a huge mistake!" he said. "This pokémon was never meant to be available to the two of you! Or to anyone, actually. It's dangerous! I can't see how I happened to put it on this table in the first place... Must have been a mix-up. But the ones you've got now are fine, they're wonderful! I wish you the best of luck! And, oh..."

Oak retreated to a table further in, and came back without the 'dangerous' pokéball, but holding two, red machines in his hands. Kenny could recognize those devices anywhere. Not by their looks, perhaps, but what else could they be?

"The pokédex," said the professor. "It keeps a record of _all_ the pokémon you encounter. And trust me when I say _you'll need it_."

He gave the boys a serious look, that even made Pete's face gain an air of uncertainity for a second, but then the boys grabbed the pokédex, and their new pokéballs, and Kenny began walking away from the others, his head no longer worrying about his real life, and the mysterious game, but thinking of adventures, wild monsters and scorching battles...

"Hey, Kenny, where do you think you're going?"

He came to a halt when Pete called and run up to him in the middle of the lab. "You don't think I'll let you go that easy, do you? Let's have a battle! We'll check out out new pokémon! And I'll show you that I'm the best."

Kenny looked into his friend's face. It was the same old face, but not the same Pete. This was the rival of the game. The always selfish, arrogant, yet strong and skillful trainer the protagonist would have to face many times before the ending. The ending... where was the ending? How would this end?

Panicking thoughts now suddenly gripped Kenny again, and he backed away from Pete, realizing again that this wasn't real. Maybe _he_ wasn't real. Whatever pokémon he held in his hands right now, it wasn't real either. And this world, with a town made of only three houses, neither of these houses containing a _kitchen_... how would he survive?

The rivalistic Pete seemed to interpret Kenny's frighted look as cowardness, and let out a raw laughter.

That made Kenny look up again. And suddenly, he didn't see his best friend Pete there anymore. This was his rival. The terrible person which he loathed and disdained, and wanted to... wanted to crush.

"Of course we'll have a battle," he replied, every trace of fright suddenly gone.

Pete seemed a little taken aback. "Fine," he said, and backed away to put some battle ground distance between them. Professor Oak rushed forward, shaking his head, shouting for them not to destroy any of his precious lab materials in the fight.

Kenny felt the blood rush inside his body. He was inside a Gameboy game, but he felt oddly alive. He was going to do what every ten-year-old dreamt about. He was going to have a live pokémon battle. Finally, all the the time he'd spent with the little gaming device in his hands would be put to the test.


	3. Encountering the first signs

**3**

**Encountering the first signs **

Pete's hand closed on the red and white ball. He raised it, and threw it out on the floor while calling out the creature inside. When the pokémon heard its calling, the pokéball sprung open with a shining, white light. A flash of the white light hit the floor, and in a matter of microseconds, a tiny creature had materialized in the middle of the open space in professor Oak's lab.

A sparkling, reddish brown fox now stared straight at Kenny, looking ready for whatever he would choose to do now.

Kenny just gaped at the scene in front of him. To think that the pokéballs really worked the way he had imagined... to stand before a _real_ pokémon... it looked so real.

"What in Kanto are you doing?" Pete called from the other side of the floor. "Are you going to send your pokémon out or not? Coward!"

"I am _not_ a coward!" Kenny shouted back, and shook himself back to reality. Or back to imaginary, perhaps.

He imitated Pete's throw, and his own ball burst open, making a different creature materialize in front of the previous one. But they weren't much different. Pete's pokémon was a Vulpix. His own was a tiny, but ruffy tiger; a Growlithe. Despite Pete's impatience, all four of them couldn't help hesitating and staring at each other for a few, silent seconds.

"Start the fight already, I want you out of my lab!" professor Oak whined from behind Pete.

Kenny felt his blood rushing again. This was it. He put on the most self-confident smile he could muster, and decided to show 'Pete', or whoever his rival was, that _he_ knew the most about pokémon battling. He raised his main finger at Growlithe, breathing in as to speak.

Then, the earthquake rumbled the laboratory.

Books fell off their shelves, computers beeped, their screens flicking, professor Oak let out a loud shriek. Not because of fright for the quake, but because his lab was all of a sudden turning into a pool of chaos. The Growlithe and the Vulpix howled worriedly.

Kenny gave Pete a quick glance. Pete nodded, and they both shuffled the pokémon before them, and made their way out of the lab, while it was still shaking around them. Professor Oak followed, hands protectively on his head.

Outside, Kenny suddenly felt like he was going seasick. He had never felt a real earthquake before... and somehow, he got the feeling that this wasn't one either. Although all three houses in the Chaos Game Pallet town were swaying on the trembling ground. The sky had turned a blue black and was cloudy and almost raining.

But as Kenny looked around, Pete, Vulpix and professor Oak hurrying away to the other in-game people, he suddenly noticed a silhouette in the forest near the lab. It was moving violently, but kept to the shadows of the trees. Kenny again got that vibe. That strange sensation of non-reality. The weather never changed in Pallet in the pokémon games... And there was never an earthquake. Unless...

"Growlithe, can you blow fire?" Kenny suddenly asked the tiny creature at his side.

The startled pokémon looked up at him, as if it didn't understand. He didn't blame it, after all it wasn't human, and even more after all it wasn't really _real_. But then it nodded, and followed Kenny closer to the trees.

But the figure in the shadows seemed to notice that Kenny was closing in on it, despite of the earsplitting shaking ground. It stopped moving around instantly, and spun around into the forest. Kenny swore, and tried to give chase.

But as he and Growlithe moved in under the trees, they became surrounded by a dark impenetrable green wall of leaves and vegetation much faster than they thought possible. It was impossible to keep going in further. Kenny made his way out to the town again, gritting his teeth in disappointment. This seemed to be a fairly real pokémon game after all. In the games, you could never pass directly to another town through forests of over mountains. There was always a certain path to follow... perhaps he was now to walk the same way as his characters in Kanto had done so many ways before?

As he spotted Professor Oak again, in the middle of the town, he realized the shaking had stopped. The earthquake had gone away.

"Where's Pete?" Kenny asked before Oak could utter a single word.

"He has gone already!" the professor answered, making Kenny raise an eyebrow.

"What? Where? Did he go in the middle of the quake?"

"Listen, Kenny, you seem to be a little confused. I don't get why. But you know, these things happen..."

"What? Quakes do happen?"

"And such things! You know! Floods, quakes, even the forming of the Eastern Desert... That is why everybody leaves. To join the Kanto League and prove themselves strong enough to help put a stop to this. The League is fighting for us right now..."

"What?" Kenny shouted again. He had never heard about any of this in _any_ game he had ever played here. "There is a war?"

"No, stupid! And, what are you doing here still? Why aren't you out on the roads to visit the other towns and help? I thought you'd be more than a match for Pete, but now I'm not as sure any more."

Kenny clenched his fists. "I am more than well enough a match for that puny kid!" he said pompously. "Right then! I'll go. From this very moment, I am on my way to the Kanto League. To save the world!"

He had just blurted out the last phrase in the heat of the moment, but when Oak smiled proudly and seemed to take him seriously, he immediately regretted it, and wondered what in Kanto he had gotten himself into now.

§

He had gotten himself into a straying journey, that was it.

Kenny left Pallet town without more ado. He still didn't feel hungry, and came to the conclusion that he simply _couldn't_ be hungry inside the game. He had never seen the pokémon or people in other games eat, had he?

So he made Growlithe enter the pokéball again, and began walking the winding road to the next town, which he very well knew would be Viridian city. After a while of walking down this road, he even thought he recognized it. The environment still had an unrealistic feeling, like in a video game, but a little menacing with the creepy, black clouds above. Strange. The sky had been sunny when he entered the lab, but now it didn't seem to ever get bright again.

He recognized the grassy fields and non-break-through-able hedges and lines of thick trees, but after a rather long time of walking, three things happened which he wasn't prepared for at all.

The first thing was that all of a sudden, the area got even darker. Very dark, actually. The sun wasn't visible at all, but Kenny had the feeling it wouldn't be there even if the clouds were gone. But perhaps the moon would. Night had come, but Kenny didn't recall the night feature to have been used in any of the Kanto games. However, he easily accepted this, as he figured the Chaos Game makers had improved the games a little, and as he wasn't very afraid of the darkness.

The second thing was when he stopped to get some rest. It was dark, but he could still see his surroundings, as you always could at night in the Gameboy games. But soon he discovered that when he lay down in the sleeping bag he had gotten from home, he only kept staring at things around him, or up into the sky. He couldn't sleep. He let out a deep sigh. Clearly, he _couldn't _sleep either.

The third thing was the worst. It happened in the dawning, when he resumed his travel, and let out Growlithe for some unrealistic companionship.

As they went forward on the road, which was remarkably empty of people by the way, Kenny found he was panting. Why would he do that? Had his condition magically gotten so lousy when he was brought inside the Chaos Game, so that he wasn't even capable of walking a plain road forward without getting exhausted?

Growlithe was enjoying itself by turning somersaults on the ground when Kenny started thinking about this. He seemed to have chosen a very playful pokémon. Then he suddenly stirred, and looked at the playing tiger.

Growlithe turned a somersault, got up, moved back to the same spot where it had begun the previous one, and turned another somersault. Kenny watched this, knowing that his senses spotted something, but his mind wasn't catching on. Not until Growlithe decided to try a somersault in the opposite direction. It didn't go well at all. The pokémon's body stopped half-way through, and tumbled back over.

Kenny realized what was going on. But... here?

Slightly puzzled, he looked up further ahead on the road. He could see the horizon. As he slowly moved towards it, Growlithe got up, hung out it's tongue merrily, and tripped after him.

One minute later, they had reached the horizon. Kenny wasn't puzzled any longer; now he was downright astonished. Even Growlithe dropped it's jaw. Together, they turned their gazes downwards.

This didn't happen in any pokémon games. It _couldn't_ happen. A Gameboy game simply hadn't enough... screen to show it. To show the land, the ground ripped up, teared like if a giant, _gigantic_ can opener had cut through the shell of the earth. To show the split ends of land, curved upwards, and the steep, no, hell-like rift in the ground, deeper than any eye could reach to see. To show the two small figures standing at the very top of one side of the rift, staring unbelievably, silhouetted by the faint, rising sun shining through the dark, menacing mass of clouds.

No, a normal Gameboy game simply couldn't show this. But this was the Pokémon Chaos Game. Kenny swallowed, harder than he'd ever done in his whole life in the real world.

§

To be continued...


End file.
